


Appendices: Author's Commentary

by petrichor (findingkairos)



Series: Behind the Scenes: Seiryū [2]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Author Commentary, Commentary, Meta, Metafiction, Sawada Nana's A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-09 08:03:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13477200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findingkairos/pseuds/petrichor
Summary: Commentary and notes forSeiryū.





	1. Drabbles I - L

So, some background before I start: like I mentioned in the last ending note for the drabbles that you can find in Chapter 5, _Seiryū_ actually wasn’t intended to be anything more than a drabble series. Of course, that was four years ago, so I couldn’t have expected that I’d still be working on the story today or how large and detailed the world would become.

Still, I’m very proud of how much both I and the work have grown, and I’m looking forward to sharing some of the behind the scenes details with you! I’ll try to keep this Author’s Commentary series as spoiler-free as possible, so that people can read it along with the chapters that go up in the main work _Seiryū_.

And if you have any personal questions for me the author or for the writing process, or if you just want to see some of the muse stuff for _Seiryū_ , you can always hit up my Tumblr for that.

* * *

> _Seiryū_ : the Azure Dragon. One of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations, which are the astral representations of the Wufang Shangdi. Represents the east and the spring season.
> 
> Or: No matter what you think, you are important, my dear. Your mere presence will topple kingdoms and wage wars; your life, freely given, will save worlds.

Okay, so I wanted to talk about this for a moment before we move onto the drabbles. This is the opening notes for the entire fic that I put in fairly recently. Off the bat _Seiryū_ is a weird thing to name a fic, but I am very much an author that likes symbolism. Like the note says, _Seiryū_ is the guardian of the east and spring; Keiko can be translated to mean “spring child”; and by the end of the fic, we will have seen both the renewal of canon as well as a figurative renewal as characters develop.

(The latter half of the note could refer to anyone in the fic, or even the reader. I leave its interpretation up to you.)

* * *

**Parts I - X**

All that I was really sure of in the beginning was two things: one, that I sure as hell did not want to write a fic where fix-its are easy, and two, that I wanted to explore the ramifications of one of the supporting characters having an older sibling. Incidentally, I chose Yamamoto Takeshi because he was the one where I felt like I could do the most work with the Butterfly Effect.

(Ironically enough, I’d only set out the Rules of Engagement much further down the line, around Chapter 7: _02\. in motion and in stillness_.)

> She's tried, of course. If only for the sake of her father's odd little frown that quickly quirks into a smile when he catches her looking. If only for the sake of her little brother, she's tried to be normal, act normal, as if nothing were wrong.

This is one of the earliest parts, where I was still establishing Keiko as a character. Here I tried to hint at, or at least work with the feeling that comes with always playing a mask - of someone who’s a simple child, and definitely not someone who was reincarnated incorrectly, no sir - and failing.

> Living with the Yamamotos is sort of like living with an enormous amount of sunlight, blinding the unprepared with cheeriness and its absurd amount of _normality_.

Here’s the first introduction to Keiko’s background; and I said before in Chapter 11’s closing notes that when I read the older parts I find places where there’s foreshadowing for things that I hadn’t consciously intending to be there. This is one of them for an aspect of Keiko’s character that we hit upon in Chapter 12.

> He reminds her of the sibling she'd had before (push down the hurt, see, it's easy, just don't think about it), and her affection and protective nature for this one is no different.

It’s always easier to do something you’ve done before. 

> (But sometimes he gets the feeling that someone, somewhere, is watching him from the sidelines as if they _know_ what he's feeling, and he turns around and sees no one but a brown-haired boy and that's strange, isn't it, because what would Dame-Tsuna know about fending off people and their unwanted questions?)

This is a reference, of course, to the rumors that inevitably go around a widower and his family, especially in an Asiatic nation like Japan where blood family is pretty much everything.

> Their meeting might have been a cliché, but that friendship has lasted two years. Keiko tells her two friends things that she doesn't dare tell her father or brother, and Satomi and Eri return the favor as the youngest of three and an only child.

They’re not really the Golden Trio, but they’ll be infamous someday. I do drop a lot of hints on Satomi and Eri’s characterizations, but we don’t really see it early on because at this point Keiko is still trying to keep them away from the Mafia or from anything like the story that she remembers from a lifetime ago.

> It's… surprisingly normal, around them, and she likes that. It gives her a place ( _purpose_ ) and friends.

And yet more foreshadowing. Seriously, I don’t know what my past self was thinking writing this, but they must’ve been onto something at least unconsciously.

> _"Who does?" Satomi giggles, but her face turns serious just as quickly as it had been amused. She does that sometimes, but it never fails to amaze Keiko how rapidly her friend can change topics. "But still. If you could do anything in the world, what would you do?"_ __  
> __  
> _True to form, the only girl in their group with glasses has an answer ready in few minutes. "I'd probably become a lawyer, like my kaa-san. I want to help the people who need it, but can't afford it. What about you, Satomi? What would you be?"_ __  
> __  
> _It's like Satomi has been waiting for the question, and maybe she has. "I'd like to be a teacher, or maybe a painter! I like colors and making things with paints, but I like to help people too, like you said, Eri-chan! Just in a different way, I suppose." She smiles, and turns to Keiko._ _  
> _ _  
> _ _"What about you, Keiko-chan? What would you want to be?"_

Ahhh, how the young see the world. As eleven-year-olds they do have their careers oddly set already, but then again only Eri is the one that keeps her childhood dream. Satomi, if you ask her, will give you a different answer every five years or so.

> Effectively, even without knowing it, Takeshi has her cornered.
> 
> (Or maybe even by knowing it, on some level – his eyes, as much as they are the windows to his thoughts and soul, are triumphant when she finally sighs and gives in.)

Of course, baby Takeshi only knows that his sister is hesitating over whether or not she should be learning self-defense. Even at that age, he’s perceptive.

* * *

**Parts XI - XX**

> (It is not… _that_ blade, she knows. She is not learning the _Shigure Soen Ryu_ , which would make the blade useless to her, anyway. No, she's using one of her father's old practice swords instead, and she's perfectly content with that.
> 
> _The weapon does not make the warrior._ )

Keiko, canonically, starts learning swords around the beginning of her career at Midori Middle. This means that by the time Reborn arrives in Namimori, she has been learning - and mastering - her sword style for at least six years. Not that much time, in the grand scheme of things and compared to career swordsmen, but it’s a decent amount that serves her well.

> And it is true – the versatility of the style might have been something truly… _interesting_ , if she had chosen to pursue it, but as a person and a now-kenjutsu student, Keiko prefers continually flowing movements to the _Shigure Soen Ryu_ ’s comparably more rigid methods and sharp ones.

From what I’d seen at that point, the _Shigure Soen Ryu_ is developed to be a sword style with specific moves and techniques, which is actually pretty common in martial arts - my old dojang had a specific way they wanted us to do kumdo, for example, which was different from the dojang the town over, etc. Interestingly enough, I don’t actually mention the name of the sword style that Keiko chose until later in the drabble set, a stylistic decision that I might keep if I ever rewrote it.

> And third, because everyone expects her to, as the first-born daughter of a wielder of the style.

A very long-shot foreshadowing sentence for something that will only come to fruition around four years later. We’ll get to it eventually I swear.

> Keiko blinks when Eri snaps her fingers in front of her eyes. "Class is starting," she simply says, and moves back to her own desk with her empty lunch bag.
> 
> Her friends are long used to the moments when she falls into her own head and need assistance refocusing. She's not quite sure when it started, but since then Eri has noticed every incident in her presence, and Satomi has done what she could when their other friend isn't there to do so. Keiko does what she can for her friends when she can in return.

Girls supporting girls is always great, okay, you can fight me on this

(And yes, Keiko having issues is based on things that I will eventually get to around Chapter 12 of _Seiryū_. Until then, have fun finding all of the foreshadowing!)

> (Satomi notices her… _sulking_ , and aims a chemically-fired plastic bottle rocket model at _her_ and not Eri instead.)

As the youngest of three in a family that supports the idea of the _Yamato Nadeshiko_ , Satomi is very adept at following people’s emotions and moods as they develop. That pressure to always be aware of the state of a room - that emotional labor - is a major factor in her development as she grows up.

> "No hard feelings then, I hope. The sins of the father are paid for by the blood of the child; you understand, _sì_?"

*insert dramatic music here*

* * *

**Parts XXI - XXX**

> (…Perhaps she's been lying to herself the entire time. Perhaps she's been afraid of failing instead, and had chosen the coward's way out.)
> 
> But. Right here, right now, where everything that happens next hinges upon this moment –
> 
> …
> 
> She does not want to die.
> 
> The thought is crystal-clear in a world of fog. A resolution, a conviction – a truth.
> 
> _She does not want to die_ – not until she has seen Takeshi through the story in her head, and _live_.
> 
> (Not until she knows that she is leaving her only brother and her tou-san in good hands, and not alone in the world. Not until she knows that her Takeshi will not attempt to jump off a roof, torn by grief for a sport that he does not know is _not worth throwing away his life for at the first sign of defeat_.)

This part. _This part_.

I struggled a lot with Keiko’s characterization before this. I knew that she was an older sister, that she remembered a lot of the academic things in her previous life before she died and was “reincarnated” (which she is still in doubt of, exactly, but there’ve been no answers so far and asking questions about the possibility of past lives would only bring unwanted attention), and that she was not going to start out as a Sky Flame. What Flame type then, exactly, I didn’t know.

Until I wrote this part.

I only solidified the worldbuilding of _Seiryū_ fairly recently, but when I wrote this part I had the image of Keiko on the floor bleeding out and surrounded by blue fire: ethereal, not-quite-real, and definitely not of her previous world. If there were any doubts as to her motivations including distancing herself from her new life and new brother, then they’re burned out here.

> "Though, the girl was also full of surprises. Like father, like daughter, I suppose. Shame that she doesn't seem to have any training – she might have _survived_ if she had."
> 
> The assassin smiles, all teeth. Just beyond him is his Keiko, wrapped in premature Flames that _should not have happened_.

Yamamoto Tsuyoshi is a man with many regrets, and this is one that will haunt him for many, many years. 

> His daughter might have gained a concussion, but in his… _long life_ , Tsuyoshi knows how to deal with those. Though conventional sense might tell him, _scream_ at him to take her to a hospital because _there is nothing he can do_ if her condition takes a sharp turn towards the worst, he has had concussions and has _treated_ people with concussions for a long, _long_ time.
> 
> Sun Flames are not the only ones capable of healing, after a sense.

This entire section - drabble XXIII - has, perhaps, way too many italics. I’d rewrite it to include less, and maybe make it more clear as to what’s going on.

But it also reveals some more lore about Rain Flames, which is what Yamamoto Tsuyoshi has: in _Seiryū_ ’s universe, the aspect of Tranquilization essentially saps the physical and non-physical energy out of the target. It can be used to slow down bodily functions as well as the spread of certain things in the body, and is very much a tool for “buying time” should it be necessary. 

However, the medical side of things is very much not mainstream, what with the rainbow Cosa Nostra’s tendency towards destructive and violent uses over supportive ones, so the majority of people never think to use Rain Flames this way - only Sun.

> _"I'm not supposed to have it, am I? That's alright, tou-san, really. I'd… rather not in the first place, anyway."_

Just because Keiko is resolved to being there for her little brother does not mean that she is fine with being completely involved in a world that she’d read about years and years ago.

(And of course, the key word here is that she is resolved for her _little brother_ and, accordingly, his survival and promise of peace - something that will affect her Flames and its very type. More information on Flames and the way they manifest can be found in [The Newbie’s Guide to Flames, Revised Edition*](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13474584)).

> Matsuoka Satomi might be the youngest of three children and used to being treated as a mere _afterthought_ , but she has learned things in her time as such. She has learned how to speak if she wants something from her parents, from her brothers, from _people_ ; how to walk and behave, if she wants to go unnoticed; how to read body language, and react accordingly.

Beware those you ignore, for they will come back in the end to go for your throat.

> He doesn't reply, though Keiko hadn't really expected him to. She sighs instead, slowly shifting the blade so that the majority of his force is near the pommel. People are watching, gaping; there is nothing that she can do about that, not anymore, but she _will_ be doing her best to _keep_ _under the radar_.
> 
> (Because the feeling of danger and that someone is watching her has never really left, not even after the deaths of the assassin and his team.)

The feeling of danger is part paranoia, part truth. The feeling that someone is watching her… well, at this point that can be attributed to the fact that a fluffy-haired boy is pretty fascinated with her for reasons he as of yet is not aware of. Like attracts like, after all.

> Keiko pushes him back and sheathes her blade because running with the sword in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other will be _dangerous_ for bystanders, and _runs for the hills_.

Yeah, running for the hills isn’t exactly a Japanese idiom, but Keiko has more sense than to say so out loud. It has the potential to attract attention if she did.

> (And Hibari Kyouya, the stubborn, stubborn boy. Sometimes she wishes he would simply _calm down_ and have a cup of tea instead of defaulting to spar-fights, but she knows that will never happen – not until he stops snarling that she is not giving him a _proper_ fight, at least.)

Fun fact: Keiko’s favorite tea is green tea. Of course, I said earlier in drabble XXV that the favorite _drink_ that she tells her friends is lemon iced tea, but that’s because of its tendency towards tartness.

...yeah, there’s definitely a lot of foreshadowing for her characterization that I wasn’t actively intending when I was writing these. I’ll explain what I mean when we get to Chapter 12, I swear!

> Takeshi is… not having the most normal of days, at the moment.
> 
> If he is being honest, it had started with him noticing that one, small brown-haired boy staring at him and his nee-chan like all of the adults had been. But _his_ eyes had been different.
> 
> _(Like he_ knows _and_ understands.)

There’s always been gossip around the Yamamoto family: of their eldest daughter, of Yamamoto Tsuyoshi and his restaurant, of their lack of a maternal figure. Even Tsuna hears those, on the playground and in the classroom and his lonely walks home, and in small town Namimori there’s not a lot of people who would understand the plight of a boy like him. 

> She might not have been paying attention to the affairs of Namimori as closely as she should have been, perhaps, nor has she been refreshing her memory of _the story in her head_ in relevance to anyone _other_ than her Takeshi-kun. But she remembers him.
> 
> "A—ahh. T-thank y-you, stranger-s-san."
> 
> _Bearer of the Sky and the future Head of the Vongola Famiglia._ _  
> _ _  
> _ _Sawada Tsunayoshi._ __
> 
> "A-ah? S-st-stranger-s-san? A-are y-you, um. Okay?"

This part does two things besides the obvious: one, demonstrate that Keiko has definitely been prioritizing in who she chooses to exert her influence on (with a Dying Will); and two, that she puts a definite emphasis on anyone with Sky Flames, one that’s not entirely positive. For someone in her position and bearing, where she is still concentrated on saving one person instead of many, having the attention that she believes a Sky would inevitably attract is definitely a point of consternation.

* * *

**Parts XXXI - XL**

> When she turns around, he doesn't recognize her, but he bows anyway. Courtesy is the least thing that he can show to the person who's saved him, who'd stood up to _Kikkawa_.
> 
> (No one has ever done that for him before.)

And after this we only see Kikkawa in the drabbles again the once. He doesn’t really get much screen time in the fic proper, whoops, but you’ll probably be getting references to him every now and then when Tsuna and Takeshi are commiserating.

> ( _Maybe it's from saving_ Dame-Tsuna, _a voice in his mind sneers, and he pushes the thought down. Not now not now notnow_ notnow.)

This is part foreshadowing for Sawada Nana and part characterization of Tsuna. We’re at the point of the narrative where it’s been years after Tsuna’s Flames were sealed, so he’s been weathering a lot of bullying for the last four years or so; and that leaves quite a mark on people.

> She doesn't speak slowly, like some of the adults do sometimes, and he's grateful for that. She doesn't speak like he's a particularly dull child who can't understand sentences spoken in rapid-fire Japanese – because he _can_. It's just the _people_ that he has problems with. "I mean, do the other students… attempt to take your things often?"

Keiko is very much against bullying. But she’s around thirteen/fourteen here, physically, and she also knows that the Dame-Tsuna that everyone knows is due to outside causes, not anything about Tsuna himself.

And when you have struggles with motor control, cognitive skills, and behavioral skills, people definitely interact with you differently, like speaking slowly (and in some ways, mockingly).

> (She is currently the first person to _ask_ instead of _assume_ , as close to the truth that they are all capable of coming to.)

Tsuna, though, is _perfectly capable_. No matter what is teachers or even his own mother says.

> To have him at such a young age, and yet suspecting of so much – _what if it had been_ Takeshi, is always at the forefront of her mind.
> 
> It is an illogical thought, but worries are not always logical. If Takeshi hadn't been as outgoing as he is; as easy-going as he is; as friendly as he is –
> 
> ( _If he'd been_ home _that day, because he didn't have a nee-chan to leave his precious tou-chan at home with–_ )

Ahahahaha just by living you’re making things different, Keiko, there’s no getting out of it I’m afraid

> She does not react, she is sure of that – _don't scare him don't scare him don'tscare_ him – but the small brown-haired boy shrinks back into his seat, anyway, a small " _Hiee_!" dying in the back of his throat. He leaves the lemonade on the table – _hasn't touched it, hasn't even taken a sip, when has it been the last time he'd properly_ rehydrated – and wrings his hands around and around in his lap.

Keiko is experiencing a mix of internal panicking, big sister instinct, and the mutual attraction between like people. Of course, it doesn’t help that Tsuna forgets to do important things sometimes, like rehydrate.

(You can’t judge though, Keiko, and that’s all _I’m_ going to say about it until Chapter 12)

> "Whoa! Are you alright?" Takeshi yells, and drops his bag where he stands to hurry over to the boy – Sawada, isn't it? Just because he hasn't been able to _talk_ to the boy himself yet doesn't mean that he's _deaf_. He can hear Onoda-sensei yelling just fine. – "That looked like it hurt!"

Everyone thinks that Takeshi is a jock. Which is fair, because he _is_ a jock. It’s just that he’s a jock being tutored by his older sister, a girl who is attending the prestigious and infamously fast-paced and backstabbing-prone Midori Secondary, so he’s not _just_ a jock in _Seiryū_.

And he refers to Tsuna by just the last name “Sawada,” since they don’t know each other well enough yet.

> The prospect of a _true_ battle – one without running, nor cunning maneuvering, nor _any_ of the various tricks that Yamamoto Keiko uses to escape the fight – brings a sharp smile to his lips and a thrumming through his veins, a sharpness that falls over his mind.
> 
> It will only be a matter of time until he will get her to fight seriously – and then.
> 
> Then, Kyouya will be satisfied, and not a moment before.

Hibari Kyouya is an interesting character. What sort of person refers to people by their eating habits, and fixate on fighting strong opponents? What sort of person would do all that and yet stake out a “territory,” as it were, and defend it with tooth and nail? What sort of childhood would they have had?

I don’t get into a lot of Kyouya’s background until further into the fic, but there are references if you know where to look. And of course after Keiko is reliably able to defeat Kyouya in spars, she is allowed close enough to pick up some of the reasons why. I don’t show that explicitly here - that’s in between the four year gap between the drabbles and the rest of the work - but I will be touching on that in the work proper, I promise. It’ll be in bits and pieces, though, so have fun piecing it all together!

> The feeling that she is being _watched_ grows, and grows, and grows, until she is reacting to looks across the street and feels more at home in a crowd and with easy exit points than she ever has before.
> 
> It doesn't amount to anything – until it does.
> 
> After the _example_ that her father has made of people targeting his family, Keiko had really thought that they would know better than to try a direct attack.  
>    
>  People might live and learn, but the _mafia_ is insistent upon vendettas and revenge.

The Yamamoto family is a prime target for assassinations and vendettas for a variety of reasons. They generally start to taper off in the coming years, as Namimori becomes infamous for being under the protection and watch of the Hibari clan, and as the name Yamamoto Tsuyoshi starts to fade from minds of the Cosa Nostra.

> It's more difficult than he'd first thought, teaching Sawada – no, _Tsuna-kun_ , because the brunette's face lights up with a smile when he does as if no one's ever used it the way Takeshi's used it before – teaching _Tsuna-kun_ how to play baseball. But Yamamoto Takeshi is not a _quitter_.

Ohhhhh yeah. I do a lot of things with the Japanese culture behind names usage in _Seiryū_ , and this is one of them. It’s considered impolite to call anyone anything other than their last name and their suffix, unless you’re close friends or family and have been given permission to do so; to do otherwise is to be considered extremely rude. But of course, Tsuna and Takeshi are about nine or ten here, and they’re growing to be quite the pair of best friends.

Additionally, “as if no one’s ever used it the way Takeshi’s used it before” is a reference to something that Keiko will find out soon.

> (Both his tou-chan and his nee-chan will _kill_ him if he ever turns into one.)

Keiko remembers all too well what happened to canon!Takeshi. Tsuyoshi just wants to make sure his son grows up knowing how to put his chin up and get through the hard parts of life just as he does the easy parts.

> (He doesn't know why he's been pushing off talking to Tsuna-kun before, but he knows he's not going to stop.
> 
> It's… somewhat like having an actual _friend_ , outside of baseball. It's… a _good_ sort of feeling.)

Takeshi is very, very good at baseball, even for his age. That, along with the tendency that Takeshi has to put distance between himself and the people of the town who are more likely to gossip about his sister and his father than anything else, means that he hasn’t had the opportunity to make many deep and meaningful relationships with the people outside of his family until Tsuna comes along.

> After that, it's easy to talk to Tsuna-kun in school, easy to walk home with him. The other boy doesn't have grand expectations for him, only watches with those brown eyes and smiles and is honest and sincere to the point where Takeshi wonders why, exactly, it is that the other children and the senseis target him.
> 
> (People can be cruel; Takeshi knows this. It's part of the reason why everything's a game to him, in the end.
> 
> _If you're playing a game, there are rules, and those who break the rules, he can deal with._
> 
> Even without tou-chan or nee-chan – he doesn't want to worry them, after all.)

Everyone expects Takeshi to be the team’s ace in baseball. Everyone expects _some_ thing of him, whether it’s his peers or his teachers or even, sometimes, his father and his sister. But Tsuna… well. Between two people who have a mutual understanding and liking for each other, it’s different.

“It’s part of the reason why everything’s a game to him” is a reference, of course, to canon!Takeshi’s tendency _to_ view everything - life, the Mafia, any and all conflict - as a game. It’s just easier to call it that, sometimes, instead of looking at something directly in the face.

> It's embarrassing, to have to have this spelled out to him, but then again, Tsuna's been humiliating himself for a while now. With stumbles over mere air, with accidents down the stairs, with the utter _disaster_ that he is in the classroom.
> 
> Surely, one more humiliation to ask if he and Yamamoto Takeshi are friends is nothing more.

Tsuna is a precious baby that is rightly and fairly anxious and uncertain of pretty much everything, social wise. He gets better, though.

> By bringing her brother and Sawada Tsunayoshi together at an early age as childhood friends, she might as well have _ruined_ the Italian's chance at having a close relationship with Sawada-kun, even moreso than a welcoming Famiglia.
> 
> (But – and this is the catalyst that Keiko finds that, in hindsight, she hates about herself but does not have the heart to fix – she _does not care_.
> 
> _Not when the other option is to have left things the way they had been going, and the consequences afterwards_.)

Keiko, on the other hand, now has one more person to worry about, who brings with him a host of others. And it’s always easier to not care about someone you’ve never met than to risk people that you do know, and know well.

The rest of it is yet more foreshadowing.

> Of course, it's _then_ that Takeshi decides to reveal to them that he's brought an Akita Inu home – a happy, sandy-colored thing, tail wagging and tongue lolling like it's the most natural thing in the world.
> 
> "His name," Takeshi says proudly, "is Jirou."

I wish I could do more with Jirou. I really do. He’s a minor character at best for now, though.

> Though, the actual _persuading_ doesn't take too much – Jirou, whenever their father tries to chase him out, always ends up trotting through Takesushi's doors on her otouto's heels.
> 
> It helps that Jirou, for all of his devotion to her Takeshi-kun, adores both her father and her, in the end.
> 
> (It helps that, when she really needs one, Jirou becomes a _warning system_ for her brother, for Sawada-kun, and for any… _strangers_ , in the house, in the end.)

Until then, have an image of an exasperated Yamamoto Tsuyoshi doing his frazzled best to raise his two children and their scruffy best friend/kouhai while trying to shoo out an Akita Inu that keeps following Takeshi home, and only letting the dog stay when it bites Takeshi’s attacker in the shin.

* * *

**Parts XLI - L**

> There are only a few explanations for the change, as subtle as it is; and she doesn't think that Sawada-kun has suddenly been able to get smarter, nor enhance his ability to learn in such a short period of time, either. So there is only one explanation, and she asks Sawada-kun to stay right as the bell dismisses the rest of the students for lunch.
> 
> The children filing out snicker and murmur among themselves, with scattered laughter here and there, but only one waits without a care of being left behind. "This won't take long," Hatsue calls out, and Yamamoto Takeshi tosses her a sheepish grin and ceases to hover by her door.

Takeshi has seen what happens when Tsuna’s been asked to stay behind, and he’s seen it too many times to not be suspicious of it anymore. People can be cruel, knowingly or unknowingly, and Tsuna is currently at that stage where he hasn’t had enough emotional support to know how to let the insinuations and outright insults roll off his back.

> "I don't know how you're doing it, Sawada-kun," she says when the boy before her doesn't do anything else other than stare at the paper. Hatsue hasn't passed anything back yet, has been hoping for a trend to present itself, so she knows that it's his first time seeing himself get a grade better than a failing one. She lets him savor the moment before she continues. "But please, keep it up. You might actually pass the class at this rate."

Onoda Hatsue, as we see her admit in the beginning of the drabble, has an ill temper. But even then she knows when to give grudging support, passive aggressiveness and all.

> (The entire house feels _wrong_ to her, feels _false_ , somehow, even when it is a Sky's refuge.)
> 
> "There you go!" Sawada Nana says, placing down a tray of an assortment of cookies, laid out in a spiral that's pleasing to the eye as she sits down herself opposite of Keiko. "I really do have to thank you for helping my son, Yamamoto-san. He's told me quite a bit about you."
> 
> "Ah, really?" Keiko paints a chagrined tilt onto her lips, and tries to calm her fingers' twitching for the sword case she'd placed with her shoes, near the front door and out of reach. "Only good things, I hope."
> 
> "Only good things," the mother confirms, gripping at her own tea and pausing to take a sip. Her teeth are a brilliant white, moreso than what she'd have thought. "And you've really helped my Tsuna-kun so much! He's no longer that useless son that he was."

Onoda Hatsue, incidentally, has nothing on Sawada Nana’s A+ Parenting. _Nothing_. 

When I first started approaching the matter of Sawada Tsunayoshi I was sure of a few things: that we would be meeting him after the sealing, and its associated effects; that I wanted to explore just why, exactly, Sawada Nana is the way she is in canon; and that I wanted to do this without external Flame influence.

This, here, is based off a great amount of my experience with passive aggressive parents who haven’t yet realized that their children are their own person. Sawada Nana is one of those people that looks beautiful on the outside and in her mannerisms, and if you didn’t know any better you’d think that she was the perfect wife and mother.

But then again, she says things like, “He’s no longer that useless son that he was,” and reveals to you what she truly thinks about her son: just that. A role as it’s related to herself, and not another child, another _person_ , that simply happens to be her son.

And when I said that “as if no one’s ever used it the way Takeshi’s used it before” is a reference? Yeah, that’s a reference to this.

> Keiko leaves with her hand reaching for a weapon she does not have the right to use (not for this, as much as she wishes to) and her brother a vanguard for a lost little boy, or what amounts to one, anyway.
> 
> (Still, though, she wouldn't change it for anything – not here, not now, not with Sawada Nana in the picture, a slow poison that no one else will ever see coming.)

One of my commenters picked this out and every time I look at their comment I vibrate in glee. I’ve always loved the idea of Sawada Nana being a slow poison, lingering in the blood and rearing its head at the worst of moments; it’s always there, watching and waiting for weaknesses.

> "I bet you cheated," Kikkawa jeers, and Tsuna-kun hides behind Takeshi, who finds he doesn't mind. He's too angry at the other Primary boy and his _bully-friends_ to do so.
> 
> (See, the funny thing is Takeshi doesn't get angry easily. He might get annoyed and irritated, sure. He just hides those with a smile and a laugh and pretends not to see, because it's just _easier_ to _pretend_ , sometimes.
> 
> But when he _does_ get actually angry –
> 
> He's learned a lot of things from his nee-chan. One of those things is how to turn that anger into something cold, something _arctic_ , something that even he'd been afraid of, once, before he'd turned it into his own.)

Here, I didn’t expect for Takeshi to learn things off of Keiko, since I’ve always been the oldest child and I’ve never had an elder sibling to learn habits and mannerisms off of; but then my mother reminded me that my sister was taking after me too much, and I was inspired by that to write this. 

And Keiko has that preternatural control over her temper because she is, as the audience knows, an older soul in a younger body. She’s had decades to master the art of becoming quiet when she’s the most dangerous.

> His question doesn't throw Kikkawa off, unfortunately; the other boy's got something to prove, after all, and he can't back down so easily. Not in front of his friends.
> 
> (Images to keep, and maybe somewhere in the future he'd have had the same mindset. It's out of the ballpark, now, not even a possibility anymore.)

When he was younger, Takeshi used to think in a lot in baseball metaphors. It seems a little heavy-handed, though, so if I ever rewrote this part I might think of a different way to phrase them.

On another note, “the other boy’s got something to prove/maybe somewhere in the future he’d have had the same mindset” is a reference to Takeshi’s insistence on remaining the ace of the school’s baseball team in canon, and we all know how that ended.

> No. There isn't the scent of freshly-cut grass here, only wet ones from the night before and dirt-now-mud. This isn't the baseball field, this is _Namimori_ , and he has Tsuna-kun at his back, Kikkawa and his _bullies_ in front of him, and a baseball bat in his hands, and he isn't afraid to use it – not for Tsuna.
> 
> Never for Tsuna.

This is the penultimate moment of commitment for Takeshi; until now, he’s just been going along with it and becoming friends with Tsuna because he wanted to. There were parts of him that were committing, and committing wholeheartedly, of course, but other parts of him were holding back, because to throw yourself into a leap of faith like that is scary at best and devastating at worst.

But here, Kikkawa asks Takeshi to make a choice, one that’s never been this clearly delineated; first because Kikkawa had been scared off by Keiko, and then he didn’t dare risk a move afterwards when the school’s star athlete started hanging around his victim. Takeshi hasn’t needed to stare at this bullying problem in the face until now.

And when he does, he makes his choice. Enforces it with a baseball bat when Kikkawa and his bullies won’t listen and the altercation gets physical, maybe, but it’s still his choice.

(I won’t realize it until later, but the freedom of choice - and in some cases, its lack of it - will be a major theme in _Seiryū_.)

> (Nee-chan just sighs at him, afterwards, and he gives her a sheepish laugh but Tsuna-kun comes out of the whole thing without a bruise, just mud splatter, and that is what Takeshi takes pride in and that is what makes the last two hours a win.
> 
> _Though somehow, you're not suspended for it, and isn't that a funny thing?_ is all she has to say, a day later. There's a smile, somewhere, like the one that she'd given Jirou when she'd taught him how to attack targets. It's not a very nice smile.
> 
> Takeshi has the best nee-chan in the _world_.)

Ngl Keiko went straight to the Namimori Disciplinary Committee because reporting it to the school administration won’t do anything, and after that Kikkawa and his bullies were absent from class due to medical reasons for the next two months.

And she bribed Kyouya with a spar to do this, but lbr Kyouya doesn’t _need_ a reason to smack bullies.

> "But now, we're almost nearing the end of your training." He grins at her confusion, and she imagines that at least some of her nerves are showing on her face. "And, though this isn't included in the _Shigure Soen Ryu_ or any of the other styles I've shown you, it is one of the reasons that few people choose to learn what _you_ chose in the first place."
> 
> Her father, her stalwart guide in kenjutsu for the last year and to whom she owes her sword skills to, reveals the object that he's been hiding – a blindfold.

Don’t try this at home, please, I’m poor I can’t be held responsible for injuries or damage

But yeah. Keiko’s sword style is _nuts_ ; it has a lot of footwork involved because the user utilizes kicks as well as the blade, and students are required to learn hand-to-hand in addition to the sword style in order to be considered a master. One of the last trials that awards mastership also happens to require that they win one hundred consecutive spars with a blindfold on.

No, she didn’t know this until her father told her. Yes, she was horrified too.

> Satomi might have her reservations, but Eri isn't a fool. A single child she might be, but she _knows_ more than she lets on.
> 
> (That is her role in their little group, isn't it? Satomi hides where none can find and Keiko hides in plain sight but Eri is the one that _sees_.)

Ah, my girls, I love them so.

Eri is also incidentally the one to realize what’s going on with Keiko and the way she’ll later realize will affect her Flames _much earlier_ than anyone else, though Satomi comes a close second. This is around the time that she picks up her “resources,” which we learn a bit about in Chapter 13. Her reasoning behind angling herself to have those resources in the first place, though, isn’t shown until later.

> (Because as stubborn as her friend is, Eri knows that if it truly had been something within the school itself that had frightened their sword-wielding friend, truly nothing would have stopped her from carrying it from class to class, somehow.
> 
> And Keiko _hadn't_ – she'd only left it in her locker, to pick it up again on the way out of school. She carries the sword _while outside_.
> 
> Not inside. Only outside.)

Keiko has nothing to fear from girls whose weapons are small, like needles, or emotional, like cutting words and scathing tongues. On the other hand, she has everything to fear from physical attacks and assassinations that the retired yakuza and mafioso of Namimori have the sense to be politely blind to while she and her father fight back.

> Hana might laugh at her for concerning herself with boys' problems, but Kyoko knows that there is something new, on the verge. It's the same feeling that she'd gotten right before onii-chan had started boxing, the same feeling that she gets when someone precious to her need something, right before they mention it. _Woman's intuition_ , her mother had called it.
> 
> It is a feeling of change.
> 
> Whatever it is, it hasn't led her astray before. Kyoko isn't about to start believing it will now – no matter how odd it is.
> 
> _Faith is a belief in the unbelievable_.

No, Kyoko isn’t a Sky, though I’d debated it. Rather, this is a combination of the expected emotional labor involved for girls to be aware of people’s moods, even at an early age, and the “women’s intuition” that Kyoko’s mother believes it to be.

It’s a little after this time and during the four year timeskip that Kyoko befriends Tsuna and Takeshi, and Hana gets reluctantly dragged along. They’re not close enough to be considered a Vongola generation, though, until later.

> This… isn't a traditional thing, Takeshi knows. And he doesn't think that his sister will need it anyway – or at least, he _hopes_ she won't. But Takeshi isn't a little brother for nothing, and although nee-chan won't accept protection directly, this, at least, is something that she will indulge him with.
> 
> It had meant to be a private thing, at first. But when Tsuna-kun finds out what he's doing, the other boy had wanted to help, too.
> 
> After much thought (and a talk with his tou-chan about what having _real_ friends means, which Takeshi comes out of chagrined), he decides Tsuna-kun helping can't hurt.
> 
> Because the more people involved in this who want to see his sister safe, the better, right?

There are, of course, difference between friends who have a shallow emotional connection, and ones that have a deeper one. And Takeshi isn’t blind; he knows what his father and his sister are taking care of when he’s not home, though assassination attempts and the like _have_ begun to taper off. 

> It's a carved totem, wooden and small and threaded through with a cord long enough to hang around the neck. The mouth is parted slightly in a silent roar and the feet claw at empty air while the body coils itself into a spring, ready to attack.
> 
> It is, unmistakably, a rendition of a dragon – hand-carved wood or not.
> 
> "…did you make this?" As far as she can tell the time and effort that had been poured into it is staggering, evident in the detail of the robin's egg blue eyes – the only colored part of the totem – and the minutes of the scales and tail. "Because I'm wondering when you had the time – or did you skip out on studying when I wasn't looking?"

Like I say in the ending note, hand-carved totems aren’t exactly omamori, but then again baby!Takeshi is ambitious and had a father who is good at wood carving and willing to help him. Incidentally, Takeshi and Tsuna both went through a lot of scrap wood and had to sharpen their knives quite a few times before they got anything close to what they wanted.

> Keiko huffs, but Takeshi's still smiling, the gaki, when she puts the necklace on and leaves it to hang over her shirt. It's a knowing sort of smile, and –
> 
> If she didn't know better, she'd have thought that Tsunayoshi had used a rudimentary version of the Hyper Intuition, because he's smiling Takeshi's smile, too.

Oh no, Keiko, you’re actually starting to do The Thing that becomes relevant in Chapter 10, and by now Takeshi and Tsuna are getting much more comfortable with each other. You pick up mannerisms from those closest to you, after all.

* * *

And that’s all I’ve got for the first part of this madness! Thanks to everyone who stuck through with this with me, and I hope I managed to hit all the points you find interesting. If you have any further questions, feel free to comment! If you want to screech about the KHR kids, I’m available on Tumblr as well.


	2. 01: derailed plans left careening in our wake

Thanks to the short nature of the next four or so chapters, these commentaries will be equivalently short. If I ever rewrite 01 - 04, I would definitely expand on scenes and rewrite sections to have a) less ellipses and b) so they could stand alone instead of being pure dialogue. Alas, my younger self from four years ago was still transferring from drabbles to a more structured narrative style. 

* * *

The “first” chapter of Seiryu starts out with a section that has, on first glance, way too many ellipses and the only first person point of view in the story. While I was writing it I thought it was Keiko talking about things in a moment of existential crisis, but as the fic stands currently, four years later, it’s up to reader interpretation. (The observations still remain true, though I’d say beware of unreliable narrators.) 

* * *

> He'd received intel for this, from Vongola's Young Lion before his plane had even touched down on Japanese soil. Mostly Iemitsu's agents' reports on his son's habits – normal enough, the hitman had supposed, for a boy of Sawada Tsunayoshi's age. 
> 
> "Ah, he isn't home at the moment! It's a Monday, you see – he should… oh, he should be at his friend's house right about now, Yamamoto Takeshi, the sweet boy. Would you like me to tell Tsu-kun that you came by?" 
> 
> … _had_ supposed.

Of course Reborn had demanded dossiers on his soon-to-be student before he ever left Sicily, and of course he would’ve done his own research as well. But reading off a paper about someone is nothing like seeing for yourself, and this wall that he runs into - where the information he’d received from CEDEF is in fact somewhat outdated or even unreliable in places - is the first of many challenges he’ll run into as he integrates into the Namimori community. 

> (Of course, he isn't counting the dog on one of the stools in the shop, _staring_ at him with chocolate-brown eyes. He isn't intimidated by a _dog_ , even if it _is_ baring its teeth in a silent growl. He's a _hitman_ , for god's sake.)

Right now, Reborn is a toddler-sized Arcobaleno that could kick a dog’s butt without trying, but also these dogs are _way bigger_ than they used to be when he was normal-sized. 

Jirou, for his part, doesn’t know what this stranger’s doing in his house and he doesn’t like it at all. 

> And Reborn has to agree, because what, exactly, had Iemitsu been _thinking_ , not even giving his family a _false name_? If the idiot had been hoping, or god forbid, _believing_ that the fact of “Sawada” being a last name that could be found all over Japan would be sufficient protection for his family, even with the Hibari and CEDEF presences, then Reborn _will_ kick him in the head once he gets back to Italy. 
> 
> Or he _could_ have Lal Mirch do it – it all depends on how vicious he's feeling when he gets around to it. “Then you know why I'm asking, Yamamoto Tsuyoshi.”

There’s a little too many italicized words in this part, but it does convey something that becomes important later down the line: out of all of the Arcobaleno, Lal Mirch is one that Reborn respects and is on neutral/friendly terms with. 

> ”You can't tell me Young Lion was enough of an idiot to agree,” Yamamoto says. 
> 
> Reborn snorts. 
> 
> “When the Ninth asks, you answer.”

Reborn isn’t just referring to the fact that Sawada Tsunayoshi is being fast-tracked into the Famiglia heir here. Vongola Nono is a man who does not take no for an answer, regardless of the way he convinces or “convinces” people. 

> (He can read minds, through body language. Who is to say that others – that someone like _Yamamoto Takeshi_ , the son of the _Swallow Assassin_ – will not be able to as well?)

Swallows are actually a symbol of good luck and a loyal marriage in Japan, but Yamamoto Tsuyoshi got called that for his swiftness and because it was ironic. More interpretations/meaning on the swallow can be found here. 

> "Takeshi, when you're worried about something, it's usually worth worrying over. Spit it out." 
> 
> "…" 
> 
> "Takeshi." 
> 
> "…he said he was a hitman." 
> 
> "…" 
> 
> "Yeah, that was my first reaction, too. I don't think he noticed, though."

Namimori is a town where there are yakuza (though by this point they’ve been defanged by our resident Hibari and his compatriots) and retired mafiosi, so hearing that someone is a hitman so brazenly is a cause for concern. It doesn’t help that Takeshi’s like 88% sure that any hitman and assassins in town are after his sister and father, so he’s automatically extremely aware and suspicious of them. 

> Keiko first hears about the Sun Arcobaleno from her tou-san and otouto's off-hand comments about the strangest person who they'd met today, he was wearing a suit and a fedora, but he was a _baby_ , and isn't that the weirdest thing, Keiko?

There are also way too many ellipses in this section, which does do its job of showing the long thought process and hesitance that Keiko’s pulled into, but which is slightly sloppy in its execution. This was from me four year ago, though, so I ask for patience from the audience. If I ever rewrite the fic, this is definitely one of the sections that I will be working on.


End file.
